Saturday, June 18, 2005

Launch, learn, and repeat

In his post, "Stealth startups suck", Mark Fletcher (CEO of Bloglines) gives some good reasons why startups should move quickly:

First mover advantage is important.

It forces you to focus on the key functionality of the site.

The sooner you get something out there, the sooner you'll start getting feedback from users.

Excellent advice from Mark.

Launching early and often is particularly important when you are exploring a new space. You don't really know what works or what doesn't. No one does. How can you find out? Launch something, test it, learn, and iterate. Keep working and improving.

For one of many examples of this at Findory, we launched personalized advertising about two weeks ago. Since then, we have quietly tested three different variations on our advertising engine. We watch the reaction from our readers. We pour over the data. We learn what works and what doesn't. And it just keeps getting better.